It can’t be much fun being a kid today in the cash-crazy world of the Prem, with its endless sponsorship deals, contractual obligations, agent percentages and miserable merchandising.
Where we used to collect football cards and petrol freebies, kids in the last 20 years have been stuck with a less than wholesome set of options, swapping booting a ball around for staring at a screen into the bargain. Some of the PLC PR tat isn’t entirely evil, but most of it is…
Yeah, let’s all go out and collect our club’s disposable razors and phonecards, little plastic players with big heads minus the green armfuls of tats, special limited-edition autographed football cards off ebay at 30 quid a pop, posters from friendly football-loving Barclays Bank, and something called pogs which nobody even knows what to do with. And these weird things out of bags of luminous yellow cheesy maize gunk so-called Wotsits too.
What’s the crappest bit of Premorabilia you’ve ever come across, and how much did it cost?
More moaning about the modern game (and idyllic mirages of good old 1981) in ‘Got, Not Got – the A to Z of Lost Football Culture, Treasures and Pleasures’ here…
Got, Not Got 